Mother’s Day marks the beginning of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Women’s Health Week. With a said objective of “[empowering] women to make their health a priority,” Women’s Health Week goals to concentrate on some of the distinctive health issues women face, together with maternal health.

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As this system is an official authorities coverage, President Trump launched an e mail assertion supporting Women’s Health Week. But the assertion appears unusually preoccupied with not detailed research about women’s health, however as an alternative with the bigger Republican marketing campaign to push their model of healthcare:

As we rejoice Women’s Health Week, starting with Mother’s Day, we acknowledge the significance of offering women entry to one of the best, evidence-based health info and care, and rising our medical information by means of primary and utilized analysis help.

Today, women live longer, more healthy lives than their moms. The quantity of women dying from coronary heart illness and most cancers — the highest two killers of women in America — has been reducing for many years. Thanks to new breast most cancers remedies, our health care professionals have saved lives and improved the standard of life for tens of millions of women. We should proceed to foster an surroundings that rewards these wanted advances in analysis.

Ensuring reasonably priced, accessible, and high quality healthcare is important to enhancing women’s health and making certain that it matches their priorities at any stage of life. In specific, women ought to have entry to high quality prenatal, maternal, and new child care. Under the present healthcare system, nevertheless, the shortage of selection in health insurance coverage and in healthcare suppliers, together with skyrocketing premium and out-of-pocket prices, are failing our residents, our households, and, particularly, our women. Studies present that women are sometimes the first healthcare decision-maker for their household they usually deserve higher choices.

I’m dedicated to working with Congress to assist moms — and fathers — have paid household depart in order that childcare is accessible and reasonably priced, and to spend money on the great care that women obtain at group health facilities. Through these reforms, and my 2018 Presidential Budget, we’ll allow entry to the important healthcare providers women want.

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The full statement, as shared by Guardian political reporter Ben Jacobs, appears fixated on how Obamacare, the present healthcare system, is particularly failing women. “Under the current healthcare system, however, the lack of choice in health insurance and in healthcare providers,” the statement reads, “along with skyrocketing premium and out-of-pocket costs, are failing our citizens, our families, and in particular, our women.”

This is an enormous assertion by itself, nevertheless it additionally butts up towards particular maternal health insurance policies enacted by Obamacare like an actionable emphasis on prenatal care and contraceptive coverage, which Trump and his administration seem set on repealing. Obamacare particularly targeted on maternal healthcare, for instance, by growing entry to early prenatal care. Meanwhile, President Trump’s American Health Care Act assaults Medicaid, which helps pay for half of the births in the United States. And this doesn’t account for different GOP healthcare initiatives just like the defunding of Planned Parenthood, which a minimum of in Texas appeared to truly improve maternal mortality charges.

Of course, maternal healthcare isn’t the one women’s health challenge value specializing in, nor is it a problem that impacts solely women. But it is a big function of women’s health — particularly since maternal mortality charges within the U.S. have been steadily on the rise for many years, and are the worst in the developed world.

If President Trump is really dedicated to “[enabling] access to the critical healthcare services women need,” he ought to attempt to protect present healthcare provisions that particularly handle many women’s wants. Otherwise, his Women’s Health Week assertion is extra lip service based mostly on ideology as an alternative of knowledge. He might begin by not cutting funding for the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues.